no truth to reports of israel targeting convoy syrian envoy says

The Syrian ambassador to the UN says there is ‘no truth’ to the reports that the recent Israeli attack on a research center near Damascus targeted a convoy heading to Lebanon.

“Syria emphasizes that there is no truth to the media reports asserting that the Israeli aircraft had targeted a convoy that was heading from Syria to Lebanon,” Bashar al-Ja’afari stated in letters to the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council and the UN secretary general. The letters were circulated on Thursday.

According to the Syrian army, two people were killed and five others injured in the airstrike that was carried out on January 30.

Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah strongly condemned the attack and said it was “barbaric aggression.”

The Syrian envoy added that the Israeli aircraft flew at a low attitude to avoid the radar and bombed the research center in Jamraya, near the capital.

“The attack caused destruction and substantial material damage not only to the center, but also to the adjacent technical development center and a parking garage,” Ja’afari said.

He added that the Israeli attack followed several failed attempts by militant groups in Syria to take control of the research center.

The airstrike “occurred after Israel, in cooperation with states hostile to the Syrian people, had ordered its lackeys inside the country to strike selected vital Syrian military sites,” the Syrian ambassador stated.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry has urged the Security Council to issue a “clear condemnation of the flagrant Israeli attack on the territories of a sovereign state and the Israeli violation of the UN Charter, the international law, the Disengagement of Forces Agreement in 1974 and the relevant UNSC resolutions.”

Russia has also reacted to the Israeli attack, saying if the information on the airstrike was confirmed, “Then we are dealing with unprovoked strikes against targets located on the territory of a sovereign state, which brazenly infringes on the UN Charter and is unacceptable, no matter the motive used for its justification.”